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450 million rounds of hollow points?

Ray Behner

Diamond
Joined
Mar 27, 2009
Location
Brunswick Oh USA
I don't know, maybe this is political or something and doesn't belong here, so I'll certainly understand it's deletion. Just curious. Why is our government ordering an additional 450 million rounds of 40 cal. hollow points for pistols?
 
Simply because they don't want the "commonfolk" to be able to defend themselves when the Gov. gives us another false flag attack... Check out the definition of the Hegelian Dialectic and it's connection with the US Govt... interesting stuff considering what the news tells ;-)
 
There was one very short article about this, maybe three paragraphs or so, that got reposted on ten thousand sites around the web. And its very very hard to find any additional details- however, the contract is for "up to" that many, spread out over five years.

Here is a relatively raw (IE, not too opinionated) version of the story.


ATK Secures .40 Caliber Ammunition Contract with Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (DHS, ICE) - MarketWatch

You will notice that only the first year is solid, the subsequent 4 years are referred to as "option years", and the minimum order is never mentioned, only the possible maximum.

So its very possible the the government is only really ordering 1 million, or ten million rounds. Who knows- you certainly cant tell from this press release.

My guess is the actual sale amount will never approach 450 million rounds.
As to why Homeland Security (which would include the FBI, and various other actual law enforcement agencies, not just the TSA or ICE) needs that much ammo, who knows? It aint target ammo, is it? Even if it was, I cant imagine all those agencies combined shoot that many rounds in five years at the range, and they probably only shoot a few thousand in actual working situations, annually.

It is fishy, just not nowhere near as fishy as the overly optimistic press release makes it seem.
 
Bulk pricing? Better call EX Gubbner Jesse Ventura. I bet he knows.

Well if each gun shot 100 rounds per week in practice for 50 weeks out of one year. 100 * 50 = 5,000 rounds per yer per gun.

450,000,000 total rounds / 5000 = 90,000 total handguns seams a bit high.

So, 90,000 / 2 = 45,000 handguns which is approximately how many handguns I would estimate the USA military has in stock so I suppose its 2 years supply of pistol ammo for your armed forces.

Isn't math wonderful? Actually 450,000,000 rounds is probably the tip of the iceberg.
 
That's just for the DHS, not the military, and 170 million rifle rounds to boot. They will need them when Obama goes after our guns in his next term.
have fun
i_r_
Every time I see speerchucker's avatar, I think I've seen him in a movie. Is it just me?
 
That's just for the DHS, not the military, and 170 million rifle rounds to boot. They will need them when Obama goes after our guns in his next term.
have fun
i_r_
Every time I see speerchucker's avatar, I think I've seen him in a movie. Is it just me?

Been on TV several times. No movies. You are probably thinking of the pictures you see in the post office and on the back of the milk cartons. That picture is a year old, I look much different now. No Chinese mustache, I was starting to look like an old Dane. Which I am.
 
Right, and they will probably quit using expensive ammo for practice the day the FBI pulls up to your home driving Chevy Aveo's and the CIA buys a fleet of Ford Focus's. This is government your talking about. Nothing but the best and the most. Spend spend spend it's all free money so who cares!

Try to think of it this way. When all that extra ammo becomes stale dated in 5 years. They will put it up for public auction for 3 cents on the dollar and you can buy it from them.
 
The US military uses the Berreta M9 9mm pistol and I believe the initial contract was approx 450,000 units with some smaller followons. The .40S&W contract for DHS would be for a much smaller number of potential users.

While the line military always gets the short end of the stick concerning live fire training I suspect the DHS uses the same ammunition for practice that they carry.
 
.... The .40S&W contract for DHS would be for a much smaller number of potential users.

But likely with more than 240,000 employees, a larger number of actual "carrying users"

...While the line military always gets the short end of the stick concerning live fire training I suspect the DHS uses the same ammunition for practice that they carry.

I agree with that.

The contract is for a max of 450 million rounds over 5 years or 90 million per year on average. If each such carrier shot 100 rounds a month at the range that would be 1200 rounds a year which would extrapolate to 75,000 carriers or about one third of total DHS employment. That seems like it might be in the ball park to me. The total carriers could be a little high, the range usage a little low but it could just as easily be off a little in the other direction as well.

Add in FBI, ATF, DEA and other Federal police agencies and the total annual Federal Requirement might well be 200-300 million rounds or 1-1.5 billion rounds over 5 years.

Then add in state and local requirements and we might be talking a billion rounds a year.
 
All this Hope of Conspiracy is silly.

DHS is a large agency. 450 million rounds of ammunition is peanuts. Most of it will be consumed in practice, quickly. Then hopefully, another order will be placed in a US factory employing US workers.

Just so you know, I despise DHS. But let's pick sensible battles.
 
This does arise a question in my mind...I know that the .40 is a very popular round, a balance between mag capacity of the 9mm and the power of the .45 ACP. With the insane prices of ammo anymore, one wouldn't suppose that this may be a move to push this caliber's price a bit higher, considering the supply and demand? Not into conspiracy, but it does make me wonder.
 
Obama's Domestic Security Force planners must anticipate a target-rich environment. After all, he said that it would be the same size or larger than the U.S. military.
 
Maybe the Zombie apocalypse is closer to reality than we realize?

or a more likely answer is ATK needed some extra business so they convinced someone (bribed some politicians) that bullets have a very short shelf life and a new stockpile was necessary.

step 2: Profit!
 
That's really not funny.

The company I work for circulates "stale" hardware (fasteners) out of stock to be replaced by new hardware, all nice and sealed in bags. This is hardware that will be in service for decades after installed, doing its job by transferring loads in severe environments.

Pisses me off to go to the warehouse at Shapiro's when I see millions of dollars of hard to get hardware piled in a corner.
 
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Large quantities of ammo, shelf life, etc.

1. Ammo in military and paramilitary service follows the "rule of fives'...Year 1-5, Combat ready ammo; year 6-10 -Training, and Second line use only; year 11-15, Training,& Emergency use only; after year 15, sell off as Surplus or Destroy.

SO ATK ( which already runs Federal, Lake City, and a dozen other Gov't supplier plants) doesn't have to "bribe" or convince anybody...they already "own": the Gov't Market.

2.As to Contract quantities: Usually ammo is purchased over a number of fiscal years, with programmed deliveries as required.

3. HPs are used for "Civilian Urban area use" ( prevention of "over-shoot and overpenetration") which is the remit of HS etc.

4. They would rather be over-supplied than run short in a critical moment.( Same as the Military...so much so that a lot of smaller Military contracts go Off-shore, because LC etc. can't keep up to the Iraq/Afghanistan usage rates.).

5.There is no culture of "use of training ammo" in the USA...they all use factory fresh if possible.
( in Aussie, most police forces use .40 cal (in Glocks) and use Federal American Eagle for training, and Winchester for Duty. ( Naturally, AE is much cheaper).

6.It is well known that the Gun-Owning American Public is better armed than the entire armed forces of the US and several European countries combined....at least where Small Arms are concerned.


Regards, and LOL.
Doc AV
Down Under.
 
Why would they use hollow points for target practice ? Wad cutters are what I thought was a standard "practice" cartridge. But I surmise that it depends what type of "target" one is using. Hollow points do one thing .... KILL.
 
Why would they use hollow points for target practice ? Wad cutters are what I thought was a standard "practice" cartridge. But I surmise that it depends what type of "target" one is using. Hollow points do one thing .... KILL.

Are you under the impression that wadcutters or any other particular projectile geometry, are less than lethal?
 








 
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